In December, 1976, while filming an episode of the hit television show, The Six Million Dollar Man, entitled "The Carnival of Spies," at the Nu-Pike AmusementPark in Long Beach, California, Chris Haynes grabbed the arm of a mannequin hanging by a noose in the Laff-In-The-Dark fun house. The arm broke off in his hands revealing a bone. Haynes and another crew member through close observation of the unclad body determined it to be that of a human male.

Deputy Medical Examiner, Dr. Joseph Choi confirmed the body to bemummified human remains and performed an autopsy on December 9th.Dr. Choi found a gunshot wound entering below the right nipple and travelingdownward from left to right. A .32 caliber "Gas Check" was found lodged inthe mummy's pelvic muscle. Tests also revealed high levels of arsenic.

The search for the mummy's identity made national news. At the urging ofother members of Indian Territory Posse of Oklahoma Westerners, Oklahoma Territorial Museum Director, Fred Olds became involved. Along with LACounty coroner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, and Forensic anthropologist Dr. ClydeSnow, the mummy was identified as the remains of the outlaw, Elmer McCurdy,

Fred Olds took the lead in returning the mummy to Oklahoma for burial.

On October 4, 1911, Elmer McCurdy and two other men flagged down theM.K.&T. #29 train outside Okesa Oklahoma, expecting to find a $400,000Osage Indian royalty payment. The robbers rifled the mail, turned over seat cushions, drank a keg of beer, and forced the crew to open the safe. They escaped with $46.00 and two demijohns (bottles) of whisky. they had stoppedthe wrong train.

Three days later, a posse consisting of Stringer Fenton, his brother Bob, andDick Wallace, cornered McCurdy in a hay loft in the Osage hills. After an hourlong gun battle, McCurdy lay dead. A bullet from Stringer's Luger automaticpistol passed through his right chest and lodged in his left pelvis. In additiona pellet from Wallace's shotgun struck him in the neck.

Fenton transported McCurdy to the funeral home of Joseph Johnson in Pawhuska. Johnson embalmed McCurdy and stored him in a back room. Asthe years passed, McCurdy's body mummified and Johnson stood him in acorner for the curious to see. In 1916, two men, one claiming to be McCurdys brother arrived to purportedly fulfill their mother's dying wish and bring Elmer home. Johnson unwittingly released the body to the men who were actually representatives of The Great Patterson Shows.

Within a week, McCurdy began a sixty year career as a sideshow attraction.

McCurdy'sAutopsy DiagramClick the diagram to enlarge

USE THE LINK ABOVETO CHECK OUT THE TRAVEL CHANNEL EPISODE:MYSTERIES AT THE MUSEUM

Elmer McCurdy is buried beside Bill Doolin in Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Numerous law enforcement agents and dignitaries were in attendance on April 22, 1977 when McCurdy was finally laid to rest.

Portraits ofa youngSW Fentonon the right andMr. Davenport

Later Portrait ofStringer Fentonon right with an unidentifiedcompanion